Telautograph

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An analogue precursor to the fax machine, transmitting electrical impulses recorded by potentiometers to servomechanisms attached to a pen at the receiving station, thus reproducing a drawing or signature made by the sender. historical

    "On Tuesday, March 21, was made the first public test of the telautograph, a long distance writing machine, the invention of Professor Elisha Gray of Chicago, which practically solves the problem of autographic communication over miles of wire."

Synonyms

All synonyms
autotelegraph

Example

More examples

"On Tuesday, March 21, was made the first public test of the telautograph, a long distance writing machine, the invention of Professor Elisha Gray of Chicago, which practically solves the problem of autographic communication over miles of wire."

Etymology

From tele- + autograph.

Related phrases

fax machine

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.